Dealt a Disappointment--Deal with it!

You’ve spent two days planning for a major sales appointment that will certainly turn everything around for your month.

Your presentation is perfect, your bags are packed and your airline ticket has been printed out.

Your expectations are high tempered by the facts of life in this crazy economy.

But it’s not the Recession that causes the other proverbial shoe to drop. You’re at the airport when you get an urgent cell phone message that your client is having a personal emergency and must cancel. Sinking into one of those uncomfortable chairs, a wave of disappointment floods every ounce of your being.

You’re angry and wonder: Why is life so unfair?

The truth is life is just fine, but you’re disappointed. And guess what? Disappointments are often the best things that happen to us.

If you’re not disappointed for time-to-time in life then you’re not living. A complete lack of any type of letdown equals a life without risks.

And you know what they say about risks…they lead to some of our greatest rewards.

Perhaps you’ve made a sales appointment with certain expectations that have not been achieved for one reason or another. The client cancelled or they weren’t really that interested. You can become disappointed or reframe the situation in your head.

Simply say, “Everything that happens is a blessing. I didn’t want that event to happen. But maybe it’s better than it happening tomorrow when I would have wasted my time with this difficult client instead of one that I know will close. Maybe it’s better that appointment cancelled today because if I would have scheduled it over the weekend (and then it went poof) then I wouldn’t have spoken at that training group in Iowa.’”

Of course, it’s better if bad things simply didn’t happen at all and we would prefer that life’s frustrations would simply float away.

Again, it’s better to get it out of the way now than down the road.

And often those annoying moments lead to some of our best discoveries.

Let’s say your workout partner didn’t show up this morning at the gym. Sure, you’re a bit bummed out. Instead of doing your routine, you try out five new machines that are even better. You never would have looked at them if your partner had shown up.

Maybe you were supposed to do a team sales call with a sales manager who is stuck in a meeting and says, “You’re on your own.” The relationship with the client becomes one-on-one and far more lucrative to you in the long run because she gives you three more leads. Again, it’s an unexpected win.

You must look at disappointments as strengthening instead of weakening. If you always go to the doom and gloom over them then that’s all you will find. Even if the event is pretty awful, you can always say to yourself: “It’s better that this happened when I’m strong enough to recover from it. Now, the issue has happened. I’ve gotten it out of the way and I can move forward.”

In sales, it’s not the end of the world to go on that call and have your customer say, “I’m just not interested.” It’s far better than someone who strings you along and sucks up your time and energy. You can come to terms with your disappointment by thinking, “I’m done with that person. Next!”

Now, you have the space clear to move on. And in a future blog, I’ll talk about the joys and benefits of really clearing a mental path.

The way to deal with disappointment revolves around how you frame it. Of course, you don’t seek them, but if they arise, you should still consider yourself pretty blessed because this thing called wisdom is usually on the other side.

In fact, I just looked up what wisdom means and beyond the quality and state of being wise it revolves around “knowledge of what is true and right coupled with judgment.” You can’t put a price tag on those variables.

I look at my own life including the fact that some plans cancelled and I was at home this weekend instead of on the road.

Sadly, my wife and I lost our beloved cat, but I was there to help comfort her during this tragedy. Was I disappointed that my work plans didn’t plan out? Earlier in the week when it happened, I was feeling badly about it. But, I was given a gift of being able to support my wife who was heartbroken. Now, I’m so grateful that my original plans fell through for me.

My disappointment was turned into a blessing.